I Wrote A Thank-You Note Every Day For A Week, And Here's What Happened

Science says practicing gratitude is not only associated with greater happiness, but it can also improve your sleep quality, bolster relationships, and even boost your immune system. I'm a believer, but I've always thought of gratitude as an inward project, something I could journal about or meditate on.

Then I heard about a study by Martin Seligman, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania; in the study, people wrote a gratitude letter to someone they'd never properly thanked and reported soaring happiness both immediately afterward and up to a month later. Bingo! This was the missing piece of my gratitude puzzle. It was time to take my appreciation public. So I grabbed a pen and vowed to write a thank-you note every day for a week. Would the 7 letters be worth my time and postage? Here's what happened:

I sent the first five thank-you cards to people I don't thank enough: Old friends, new friends, my sister, and my son's preschool teacher. I had no agenda, no cookie-cutter inscription; each card was authentic and from the heart. And every time I put pen to paper I felt a wave of joy well up in my heart. There were even tears—happy tears! Thanking loved ones for all the sharing, caring, celebrating, commiserating, listening, and learning they'd done through the years—something I definitely don't do enough, in person or on paper—reminded me of positive memories and proved to me how lucky I was to have them in my life.

Most of us are wired with a negativity bias, where we think more about what goes wrong and less about what goes right. It's ingrained in us to keep us out of harm's way, but it also means the icky, nasty stuff has a bigger impact. Research shows that giving thanks can help us build a happier brain—and writing the thank-yous was definitely a stop-and-smell-the-roses wake up call for me. There's a saying in neuroscience: "Neurons that fire together, wire together." Once I put my attention on the positive, I noticed it everywhere: The sky was clearer, people's smiles were brighter, and even cleaning seemed like less of a chore.

I wrote one thank-you card that I never intended to send. It was written to a particularly difficult person in my life, a friend turned frenemy who stabbed me in the back without seeming to care. Yes, I'd forgiven her and forgiven myself, but I'd also filed the experience away under I'll deal with this later—which is where the card came in. Writing to her forced me to look back on the situation with a fresh lens and recognize that she'd actually taught me some valuable lessons. I thanked her for bringing out my resilience and empathy, for steering me back to trusting my gut, and most of all for seeing and appreciating the connections that really matter in my life. Just like that, she went from being a curse to a blessing. (And no, I didn't send it!)

I thought the note to the difficult person was the toughest to write—until I got to my own note. How often do I thank myself? Never. So I crafted a gratitude letter to yours truly. The words didn't flow as easily as they had to friends, and the sentiments got a little stuck in my throat, but eventually I found ways to thank myself. I used Punkpost to send the card (Confetti, yes please!), and by the time it arrived in my mailbox, I felt like the receiver as opposed to the giver. This brought about another lesson: Saying thanks not only makes your day, but it can also make someone else's.

One cautionary note: My week sending thank-you cards made my happiness soar—this project was cheap and easy, and delivered instant gratification, too. But even though the week was gratifying, the joy wore off quickly. Don't expect these positive results to stick around forever. Time to send another!

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